


Leaving The Ghosts Behind

by Nativestar



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Cairo Day 2020, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23719120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nativestar/pseuds/Nativestar
Summary: "The tie that binds is the shared belief or other factor that links people together."  Family is what links them together, but Mac sometimes needs reminding of what that really means.  Especially when The Ghost's final words are haunting him.  Set after 3x08 Revenge + Catacombs + Le Fantome.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 40





	Leaving The Ghosts Behind

**Author's Note:**

> For Cairo Day 2020 - Day 6 'The Ties That Bind'

Mac wasn’t doing so good.

And Jack wasn’t the only one who saw he was struggling with what happened in Paris.  Matty had noticed. Two days ago she had passed their team over for an assignment and told Mac to assist Bozer in the new upgrades for Sparky. It was as close as she could get to grounding Mac without actually, you know, grounding him. Jack had half expected Mac to argue against it but Mac was a professional and he knew if he stubbornly insisted he was okay when he wasn’t in this job it was likely to get himself, or worse in Mac’s eyes, someone else hurt or killed.

So tonight, after a meal on the deck, Jack had feigned tiredness and said he was going to crash on the couch. Mac had given him a look like he knew what Jack was up to but he hadn’t called him on it, he’d just thrown a pillow and blanket his way.

It was three thirty in the morning when Jack’s senses pulled him out of sleep. Someone was moving on the deck outside. Their movements were careful and quiet but not stealthy and he knew it was Mac even before he was fully awake. Jack rolled off the sofa and padded barefoot into the kitchen, making two mugs of hot, strong coffee and dumping a little extra sugar in Mac’s. Neither of them would be getting any more sleep tonight.

Mac wasn’t surprised to see him come out onto the deck. The middle of the night was calm and silent so Jack figured he’d probably heard the water boiling.

“Hey, buddy.” Jack said as he passed Mac’s mug over and sat on the chair opposite him.

“Thanks.”

Jack took a sip of his own coffee. “You alright?”

Mac didn’t answer for a moment, staring across the deck at the LA view, the lights of the city mirroring the stars in the sky.

“I thought it’d be closure. Finding the ghost.”

“But its not?”

“Not so much.”

Mac looked distracted, too tired to even care that he wasn’t hiding the fact that he was lost in his own thoughts.  Jack had a feeling it wasn’t going to be easy to get Mac to open up to him this time. But he was nothing if not persistent, especially when it came to the well being of his partner.

“I can’t decide what’s worse, the old nightmares or the new ones.” Mac continued.

Then again, Mac had always been one to surprise him.

“Well, I know all about the old ones.” They were Pena and guilt and blame and _hurt_. “Why don’t you tell me about the new ones?”

Mac shrugged. “I can’t defuse the bomb in Paris, its goes off and I die, but not before I see Riley and Bozer--” He broke off. He didn’t need to continue.

The new nightmares weren’t any better than the old. But Jack hadn’t been Mac’s partner for seven years for nothing. He knew Mac was holding something back. And he was fairly certain it was the same thing that had been bugging him ever since he’d read the mission reports.

He’d read all three of his team’s; Riley’s, Mac’s and Bozer’s. He knew there was something missing. He knows their writing styles, Riley’s and Mac’s were detail oriented, sometimes too much so and Bozer was a man after his own heart with his descriptions of events sometimes sounding like a blurb for a new movie. And all three reports said slight variations of the same thing. Riley and Bozer found Mac and then Mac disarmed the bomb. That was it. Three minutes of terror summed up in a couple of sentences.

“What happened when Riley and Bozer found you and that bomb?”

Mac shrugged again. “There wasn’t much time left, I told them to get out of there but they refused. Then I realised I could rig up a pulley system using a tarp and some rope and they held the bomb up so I could get under and disarm it.”

“Good job they didn’t leave you then.”

“Yeah.” Mac said, his eyes were still distant.

“What else?”

“What?”

“You’re leaving something out.”

“No, that’s exactly what happened.” Mac said frowning. Jack could tell he was being honest which meant if it wasn’t something left out then it was something else.

“But its not exactly _how_ it happened.”

Mac’s eyes flashed at Jack and there was an accusation ready to fly off his tongue.

“No, Mac. No one told me anything. But I haven’t known you for this long without being able to tell when you’re holding something back.”

Mac sighed and didn’t say anything for a long while.

“I panicked.” He eventually said quietly. “I couldn’t think. I couldn’t figure out how to stop it and I’d pretty much given up before Riley snapped me out of it.”

“You were standing next to a bomb big enough to take out half of Paris, and you’d had a pretty shitty day before that. Anyone would have panicked.” Jack reasoned.

“But I’m a trained EOD tech, Jack. I mean, how many IED’s have you seen me defuse? A few hundred? And I’ve _never_ panicked. I know better than that. Pena trained me better than that, and when it really matters I nearly get thousands of people killed because I panicked.”  Mac stood and started pacing. “Riley had to remind me that emotions are more dangerous than the bomb at your feet, _Riley,_ Pena died in my place and I can’t even remember the most important thing he ever taught me.”

“Hey, now, that’s not true--”

“Riley and Bozer shouldn’t have left that out of their reports.”

“No. They absolutely did the right thing. There was no purpose in including that.” Jack left the ‘but you should have told me’ unsaid.

“I nearly got them killed.”

“You saved their lives, Mac. You saved a lot of lives that day.”

“I’d have saved a lot more if I’d stopped him back in Afghanistan. Pena would still be alive. Annabelle would have a father.”

“You couldn’t have known Mac, and you weren’t alone that day, Charlie was with you. Do you blame him for not questioning that EOD team more?”

“Of course not. But--”

“There’s no ‘buts’ here, pal.”

“There is, Jack!” Mac said frustrated, he stopped and faced Jack. “Because it was personal! You don’t understand. He had discs. Recordings, like the ones he made of his bombs. But this time it was of bomb techs. Studying us, learning from us. He had a whole stack with my name on.”

“Oh Mac.” Jack whispered.

“Some of them were even before the Army. I didn’t have time to watch them before they were destroyed but one was dated 2006, I was still in high school, Jack. One was dated during my EOD training. He researched me specifically.”

Jack’s heart sank. Why did these psychopaths always fixate on Mac?

“And he said the bomb that killed Pena was meant for me.”

“What?” Jack was stunned. No wonder the kid wasn’t sleeping. “Aww, Mac. I’m so sorry. But it doesn’t change the fact that it was never your fault, you know that right?”

“Tell that to his family.” Mac muttered, wrapping his arms around himself.

“Have you actually spoken to Pena’s wife?” Jack had never met her but from everything Mac had told him he’d have been surprised if she blamed Mac in any way.

“Denise? No.” To Mac’s shame he’d asked Matty to inform her that her husband’s killer was dead. He just couldn’t face that conversation. “She called a few days ago but uh, I didn’t pick up.”

“Why not?”

“That bomb was meant for me.” Mac said, as if the answer was obvious.

“It still wasn’t your fault, Mac.” He’d said it before many times and Jack would say it a hundred times more if that was what it took to get through to Mac.

“I know that!”

“Do you?”

“Yes!” Mac shouted. “But it doesn’t change the fact that he died in my place.” He started pacing again. “It wasn’t just a bomb, it was a bomb meant for _me_ , he died because _I_ was being targetted. How could she even want to talk to me now? Even _if_ it’s not my fault, maybe I could have done something different, if-if I’d paid more attention when we came across his fake EOD team or-or-”

“Or nothing!” Jack was shouting now too. “There is nothing you could have done differently, Mac! You’re just punishing yourself by thinking that there was.”

Mac’s eyes were bright with tears.

“He died because of me, Jack.” He whispered.

“He died to save you, Mac.” Jack corrected quietly, standing. “There’s a difference.”

Mac said nothing, and as the tears started to fall, Jack stepped closer and wrapped him in the tightest hug he’d ever given.

* * *

The phone call to Denise Pena went more or less like Jack predicted it would. Mac would accuse them of conspiring together except he knew Jack was right. She was a good woman and would never blame Mac.

He tried to apologise anyway.

“You don’t need my forgiveness, Mac. I’ve never blamed you. And I know my husband, if he’d known that bomb was meant for you, it wouldn’t have changed a single thing, he’d still have gone in. But if you need to hear it, I forgive you, Mac. Now please, please forgive yourself.”

Mac swallowed. There was a lump in his throat that made it difficult to speak for a minute.

“I’m working on it.”

He promised to visit soon.

* * *

Over the next few days, Jack noticed a subtle but definite change in Mac. There was a lightness in his step that wasn’t there before and he figured out a solution to Sparky’s problem that left Bozer scratching his head and Matty looking pleased and proud.

There was still a tiredness that hung over him, but then again Jack didn’t expect that one night talking through things was going to miraculously cure everything. There wasn’t a magical off switch for nightmares but when Jack stayed on the sofa again a couple of nights later and his sleep was undisturbed it made him feel hopeful that the worst was over. Although Jack no longer knew how to not worry about the kid after all this time he decided to give him a bit longer before pressing the issue.

Matty took him to one side the following day and bluntly asked him how he felt Mac was dealing with the events in Paris. Jack told his _boss_ that Mac was dealing with it and was ready to be out in the field. He told his _friend_ that it was a wound that was still healing.

It wasn’t long however, before Jack’s concern kicked back into overdrive when Mac kept falling asleep on them. In the car, halfway through a movie, on an exfil flight. Falling asleep on the jet itself wasn’t a big thing, they all did it, especially on long flights after longer missions, but Mac usually slept lightly and it was barely more than a doze. They had all learnt to be extra quiet whenever they noticed Mac sleeping. This time however, Mac slept through landing and it took Jack shaking his shoulder to wake him. It almost made Jack want to check his temperature, to make sure there wasn’t anything more sinister to worry about.

Jack kn e w better than to bring it up in front of an audience  though , even if it  was just Riley and Bozer, it w ould only earn him a glare of anger and  denial.  Instead, he br ought it up  in the car as he  was dropping Mac off home.

At first, Jack thought the conversation had gone well.  Mac admitted he was still struggling  somewhat , that some nights were harder than others but  insisted  that it was getting better.

_ I promise, Jack.  And if I need to talk, you’re speed dial  one . _

Mac had said all the right things to reassure him, and it wasn’t until Jack was putting his key in his own front door that he realised that Mac had been a little _too_ convincing. A little _too_ forthcoming with his admissions.

Jack nearly turned around, ready to drive straight back and refuse to leave until he got the truth but he glanced at the time, Mac would hopefully be in bed by now and if he woke Mac from whatever little sleep he was getting, well, that would defeat the purpose.

Jack sighed. He was every bit as persistent as Mac was stubborn. He’d get to the bottom of this, it just wouldn’t be tonight.

* * *

Everything came to a head a week later after they were sent to stop a suspected terrorist attack in Europe. It wasn’t a straightforward assignment, although Jack wasn’t sure he could remember what that looked like, it had been so long since they’d had one of them. This time they didn’t get the intel they needed soon enough which was why Mac was working on disarming the bomb while Jack did a sweep outside to make sure he wasn’t rudely interrupted by either terrorists or innocent bystanders.

The bomb itself was complicated, but not overly so. Mac wasn’t too worried so neither was Jack. It was on a timer but there was plenty of time to get this done. They fell back into their routine, overwatch and EOD tech, as if they’d never stopped.

But the fail safe wasn’t routine.

The second bomb wasn’t routine.

Jack shouted.

Mac ran.

But he didn’t leave enough time and barely made it to the door before the whole place went up, giving Jack a front row view to replay in his nightmares of Mac being thrown forward and debris raining down on him.

Amazingly, Mac was still conscious when they reached him. Although Jack quickly revised that to barely conscious and not particularly coherent.

“Mac, can you hear me? Talk to me. Where are you hurt?”

Mac was sluggishly moving and Jack helped him roll to his side and brushed off the broken wood and dust, searching for any visual injuries before he started a better assessment. Mac was mumbling something that Jack couldn’t quite catch but he didn’t think Mac was answering his questions anyway. The kids ears were probably still ringing too much, Jack’s own ears were and he had been much further away from the blast.

He could see a nasty scrape at Mac’s hairline and a swelling redness around his eye that promised to be a fantastic bruise. Jack’s hand came back red from where it was holding Mac steady on his shoulder. It was a painful slice but it didn’t look deep.

“It wasn’t him. Jack, he didn’t build it. It’s still out there.”

“Who? What’s still out there?”

“Gotta find it.” Mac whispered.

“Is there another one? Mac?”

But Mac chose that moment to finally check out on Jack and lost consciousness.

* * *

Thirty two hours and one overnight stay in hospital and Jack was finally taking Mac home. There had been no other bombs found and Mac claimed he didn’t remember what he’d said to Jack before he passed out. Jack glanced at his passenger, he was concussed, covered in cuts and bruises and oh-so-quiet. On their scale of papercut to bleeding-out-from-a-gunshot-wound-in-a-lake this barely made it to halfway but Jack was still planning to stay over a night or two, just until he was satisfied Mac was fine.

It had nothing to do with needing to be able to put eyes on his boy when the inevitable nightmares woke him up. Either his own or Mac’s.

Mac went straight into the bathroom, mumbling about not being able to sleep until he gets the hospital smell off. Jack followed him as far as the bedroom because Mac hadn’t been entirely steady on his feet getting out the car and although he wasn’t concerned enough to stop Mac he was definitely going to stay outside, listening for any ominous thuds.

“Don’t lock the door, bud.” He asked, just in case Mac decided to shut him out completely.

“Yeah, yeah.” Mac’s voice was resigned and he had to be feeling rough if he was just accepting Jack’s hovering without protest.

Jack was never one to sit patiently so he started fiddling with the various trinkets and doodad’s on Mac’s desk. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen the desk tidy, it was always full of chaos or organised chaos as Mac once described it in defence. But it didn’t hold his attention long. The whiteboard was set up in the corner of the room, curiously blank. Mac rarely had it out unless he was actively working on something and it looked odd to see it standing there so blank.

Or was it? Jack could see the edge of a piece of paper stuck to the reverse. He stood and spun it around. Maps, both global and local were stuck up across the back. Mac’s scrawl annotating them and obscure notes written between them. Case file numbers labelled each red pinpointed locations and details of investigations were pinned up around the edges. There were two colours used on the maps and Jack quickly picked out the pattern. Red markers were used for places where bombs had been discovered or had gone off. Blue were all locations where they’d been on missions or where Mac had visited. It didn’t take a genius to realise the bombs were all linked to the Ghost.

This was why Mac had been so exhausted recently. The pieces all fell into place now. Jack had thought that Mac was dealing with everything, that talking to Pena’s widow had helped, that Mac had at least _started_ to forgive himself. But no, that energy had just been directed elsewhere. Mac had been staying up late, burning the candle at both ends to try and figure it out. Channelling his misplaced guilt into this rather than accepting he wasn’t to blame. He’d told Jack, _swore_ to him that he was forgetting about The Ghost’s final threat but that clearly hadn’t happened.

Suddenly, Jack realised that the water from the shower had been turned off, and it had for quite some time now. He wasn’t sure whether to confront Mac straight away with this or to turn the board back around and find a better time. Maybe Mac was about to tell them about this anyway?

He ran out of time to make a decision as the door opened and Mac walked out, in sweatpants and an oversized hoodie.

_Okay, lets try the direct approach._

“What’s all this, Mac?” Jack winced, it came out more of an accusation than a simple question. Jack could almost see the barriers go up and the retreat into defensive mode.

“Why are you going through my stuff?”

Mac walked over angrily as if to turn the board back around, but Jack blocked him.

  
“Oh no. Nope. You don’t get to be all offended over this. You lost that right when you lied to me about letting this go. Not to mention if you hadn’t been running on fumes because of this, you might have got out in time and avoided getting blown up.” Jack paused. “Besides, you weren’t exactly hiding it that well.” He added, only feeling slightly guilty.

“I didn’t get blown up.”

“That’s not the bit to focus on, Mac.”

“Fine. I’m trying to figure out the most likely location for the bomb he left me. I can’t just drop it, like Matty said. If there’s a chance its out there and I don’t even _look_ and someone gets hurt or killed, then that’s on me.”  Mac explained. “I can’t have any one else die because of me.”

“Mac, it wasn’t--”

“Don’t Jack. Just don’t.” Mac cut him off firmly. Then added in a softer voice, “Part of me knows it wasn’t my fault but it still feels like it was.” Mac indicated the board. “Believe it or not, this helps, doing _something_ helps.”

Jack could understand that. He was a man of action himself. This was something Mac could control, he could put that big brain of his to use rather  than  use it to tie himself up in knots. But it was only slightly healthier than the alternative, Mac was still a short step away from obsession and he had a feeling Mac knew th at as well otherwise he wouldn’t have kept it a secret.

“Why didn’t you just tell me, Mac?”

“Because I thought you’d try and stop me.”

“Or maybe, I’d have helped you.” Mac looked at Jack incredulous. “Okay, helping might also have involved trying to stop you but _only_ to take a break, to take a step back and stop it becoming an obsession. If its this important to you to look for this bomb then its important to me too.” Jack admitted. “And if you let us in, I’m sure it’d be important to Bozer too. And Riley. Charlie would help too. You know he would. You don’t have to do everything by yourself, Mac.”

“I--” Mac looked like he didn’t know what to say. “I wanted it to be over, you all thought it was over. You all looked so relieved, I didn’t want to ruin that based on something that might all just be a lie to mess with my head.”

“So you decided to carry that weight all by yourself on your shoulders. That’s a heavy burden, my friend.”

“It’s not fair--”

“Mac, stop! I thought we’d been over this before, when we were searching for your dad, I thought I’d finally got through to you on all this. I’m here for you, _we’re_ here for you, and not just for the good times. We’re here for the rough times too. If I had a problem and I said it wasn’t fair to ask you for help, what would you say?”

Mac hung his head in defeat.

“I’d repeat what a good friend once told me, ‘your problems are my problems.”

“Sounds like a wise friend.” Jack smiled.

“He has his moments.” Mac said, returning the smile.

“And you wouldn’t think twice about whether it was fair or not, would you?”

“No.”

“So, why do you think less of me?”

“I don’t.” Mac said forcefully. “This isn’t about _you_ , Jack.” Mac stopped and ran a hand through his wet hair. “Okay, okay, I get it, Jack.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Okay.” Jack nodded. “So you’ll let us help?”

“Yes.” Mac agreed. “And I’m sorry.” He added sheepishly.

“Sorry for not telling us, or sorry that we found out?”

Mac thought about it for a moment. “Both.” He admitted honestly. “But more sorry you found out like this. You’re right. I should have found a way to tell you.”

“Okay.” Jack said, nodding. He could never stay mad at Mac for long. “I’m guessing from the all-nighters you’ve clearly been pulling you haven’t found anything yet?”

M ac shrugged.  “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”  He quoted quietly.

Jack sighed, clearly he wasn’t going to be able to talk Mac into stopping anytime soon. But right now, Mac looked like a kicked puppy, the bruises were livid on his face and if the squinting was anything to go by, he was due another painkiller.

“Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. Firstly, you’re going to get some rest, at least twelve hours if you can. No arguments.” Jack raised a finger when Mac opened his mouth. “Then we’ll order take out and invite Riley, Bozer and Matty over. You can present what you’ve got and then we’ll work on it together. As a family.”

“Okay.” Mac visibly relaxed and he dropped to sit on his bed. “Thanks, Jack.”

“You’re welcome, bud.” Jack squeezed his shoulder and helped him get under the covers. “Just try remembering it next time.”

“’member what?” Mac mumbled.

“We’re your family, which means we’ve got your back, because family is everything.”

**Author's Note:**

> I started this back in December so I'm really glad to finally be able to post it and that it worked for one of the themes of Cairo Day. I hope if you've got this far that you enjoyed it too!


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